Beasts
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Background: One widely-used metric for encouraging people to maintain a healthy weight is “BMI” (Body Mass Index), which is defined as BMI = (weight / height²), when given a weight* in kilograms and height in meters. [*] Or “mass,” for the highly pedantic. The Issue: Doctors often recommend that humans maintain a BMI in the 18.5–25.0 range, although the…
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Background: Birdwatching is a hobby that appeals to many completionists who enjoy trying to see every possible bird. The Issue: Unfortunately, many species of bird have gone extinct. Some notable examples: Elephant bird (Madagascar, extinct ~1000) Moa (New Zealand, extinct ~1440) Dodo (extinct 1681) Passenger pigeon (extinct 1914) The ivory-billed woodpecker (extinct 1987) Fortunately, birdwatching…
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Background: It has been reported, since the time of this guy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herodotus), that there is a type of bird that picks food out of the teeth of crocodiles, who are unable to properly acquire or use dental floss. Specifically, we have: The apparently-mythological “crocodile bird”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trochilus_(crocodile_bird) (Figure 1) And occasional video sightings of random birds…
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Background: Many people feel obligated to look “sufficiently presentable” when they go out of the house: this may involve non-wrinkled clothes, makeup, hair styling, etc. The Issue: Sometimes, people just want to go about their lives without worrying about fashion or oppressive standards of personal grooming and hygiene. One interesting approach to this is to…
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Background: Computer speakers can play high-frequency sounds that a dog can hear, but a human cannot. (This will be important later.) The Issue: People often wish they spent less time casually browsing / “doom scrolling” on the Internet. Unfortunately, it’s a hard habit to break! Proposal: This solution is very simple: an operating system can…
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Background: Some animals communicate at frequencies outside of the normal range of human hearing. For example, bats are constantly flying around and emitting shrill echolocation “pings,” but humans typically can’t hear them. Proposal: Electronic hearing aids have existed for many years, but they’ve always focused on enhancing hearing in the normal human ranges—no one has…
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Background: Some types of pets (notably, cats) are fond of both 1) hiding and 2) napping. The Issue: This can make it difficult for the pet owner to know if their treasured beast is inside the house. Did it come back in the house from the patio? Or is it sleeping in a tree outside?…
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Background: In ancient times, most animals were kept around for specific functional purposes (e.g. “eat the mice” or “guard the village” or “be eaten by me, the human.”). However, these days, most animal-owners have pets that don’t actually have a specific job to do. Proposal: We should be able to enhance the lives of both…
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Background: Pet ownership can be rewarding, but it can requires substantial work on the part of the pet owner. The Issue: Sometimes, people’s lives would be more compatible with a “timeshare” of a pet: taking care of it for a few hours a day, rather than 24/7. However, this arrangement is incompatible with most living…
